Financial Technology

Level App Scores $5M in Funding, Helps Users Mind Money

The folks at Intuit (News - Alert) are looking to help make your bank reconciliation a little bit easier, as the company has partnered with mobile financial services company Level to offer a real-time money meter app.

The new venture scored $5 million in funding from Kleiner Perkins, and aims to keep tabs on your mobile wallet. Available only for iOS, the app is simply called ‘Level.’

Level offers a snapshot of a user's spendable income for that day, week, and month. The app eliminates the need to use old-fashioned budgets and spreadsheets or to classify purchases into categories like “groceries” or “entertainment.”

Instead, the tool performs an automatic analysis to calculate a user's total income, recurring bills and recommended savings each month; it then tracks a simple “spendable” balance, broken down by day, week and month. Every time users complete a transaction, the app automatically updates their remaining cash available for that day.

“Our generation doesn't think about money the way our parents do,” said Level CEO and co-founder Jake Fuentes, in a statement. “We need a totally new approach to finance that's mobile-first, radically simple, and completely effortless.”

While this app provides a glance at what’s available in one’s bank account, it lacks the ability to help change one’s spending habits if they’re looking to change the course of their financial future. It saves time, but it doesn’t give you the opportunity to know everything about your money.

On the plus side, it’s a real-time money meter and will help the simple banker avoid going in the red, and if you simply want to know where you stand with your money without a complicated spreadsheet, then Level is a perfect fit.

“Budgeting is dead, and that's why we've taken the ‘quantified self' approach; instead of applying the technology to personal fitness, we're applying it to personal finance,” said Fuentes.